What’s wrong with the master’s Internet celebrity landmark becoming a suicide spot?

At the beginning of 2021, when a third young man chose to jump off a building here to end his life, The Vessel, a popular check-in landmark in New York, announced that it would be closed indefinitely.

The sci-fi honeycomb design, infinitely extending stairs, and nearly 200,000 related tags on INS.

When it was first completed in 2019, this large staircase in Hudson Yards was a must-see for many tourists.

The building is 16 stories high and nearly 50 meters high. When you are in it, you can even overlook the beautiful views of the Hudson River and Manhattan not far away.

According to the New York Times, two years before the tragedy, tourists and experts were concerned that The Vessel’s lack of protection might pose a safety risk.

However, this "safety warning" was drowned out by countless crowds. It was not until the lives of three young people died within a year that this fun social place, which the designer said, received widespread attention.

An Internet celebrity landmark flocked by young people

You may be familiar with the designer of The Vessel. He is Thomas Heatherwick, the most popular architect in the world.

At the age of 39, Thomas defeated Zaha Hadid, known as the "devil in the architectural world", and won the design right for the British Pavilion at the 2010 Shanghai World Expo.

The British Pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo

At the same time, the magical new landmark 1,000 trees on the Suzhou River in Shanghai, the main cauldron of the London Olympics (204 copper petals) and other landmark buildings were all created by him. hand.

Photography @Qingyan Zhu

Known as Leonardo da Vinci in the architectural world, Thomas’s design works often break away from the limitation of “architecture is just architecture” and possesses rich imagination and creativity.

According to Thomas, The Vessel is not a rigid static sculpture, but should be a fun social place.

As one of the most complex steel structure buildings in history, The Vessel is full of gimmicks and looks like a "big pine cone" from a distance.

This giant observation staircase is composed of 8 overlapping and interconnected staircases and platforms. It is polished copper color and radiant, which can be said to be eye-catching.

The architectural inspiration comes from the form of Indian step wells. It contains 154 staircases connected end to end and more than 2,500 steps, attracting people at the bottom of the well upwards step by step...

Dive towards Looking down, it gives people a strong visual and psychological impact.

The entire Hudson Yards project cost $25 billion and is the largest mixed-use private development project in U.S. history.

The Vessel, which cost 200 million US dollars, is free and open to the public. In addition to being responsible for traffic, it is also a place for New York locals to climb stairs for fitness and gathering.

The internal route is like a layered mountain peak, one kilometer long, where tourists can climb, explore and overlook.

Although the project background mentions "healthy city" and "citizen first", the three elevators are only provided for the elderly and the disabled.

The Vessel, with its numerous stairs, is not convenient for children or adults pushing strollers.

The Vessel Elevator

The project attracts young people who like to follow trends and climb stairs. In early 2020, the first person to commit suicide at The Vessel was a college freshman from New Jersey.

The second case occurred in December last year, when a 24-year-old girl suffering from depression committed suicide, followed a few weeks later by a 21-year-old man from San Antonio who committed suicide by jumping to his death. own life.

After three consecutive accidents, the developer of Hudson Yards finally announced that The Vessel will be "closed indefinitely" until the best countermeasures are discussed.

"I knew this building would have a suicide problem"

The Vessel Before the tragedy, there were actually doubts coming out. Audrey Wachs, former deputy editor of "The Architect's News", pointed out:

"When people climb up a building, although the height of the railings remains above the person's waist, as long as the person stands at a high place, there will be Tendency to jump."

The swirling shape and dazzling effect have also been criticized. Some people have said that being inside The Vessel will cause severe dizziness and instability.

Architectural color is a fair color. In the study of architectural psychology, changes in color will lead to strong psychological implications. Especially when surrounded by brightly colored buildings, people's emotions are often accompanied by a sense of impulsiveness. vice versa.

For example, the Ferrier Bridge in London, England, was once black, and people often committed suicide by jumping from the bridge into the water. Later, the London City Government simply listened to the advice of medical experts and painted the bridge from black to blue, and the number of people who committed suicide by jumping from buildings dropped by 56.4.

When architecture affects emotions, these factors are further amplified for young people.

Charlotta Todelius of Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden pointed out that suicide among young people is often very impulsive and sudden.

"They may not really want to die, but just want something to pause. This may have been something that has been going on for a while, or it may be something that is very trivial to an experienced adult. Examples include breaking up with a partner, arguing with parents, failing in an exam, or being gossiped about."

This is where The Vessel caused huge controversy. Although it created an Internet celebrity building that countless young people flock to, it did not create a truly effective brake valve.

Dr. Gil Harkaway Friedman, vice president of research at the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, has advice for architects and builders: “Suicide prevention should be considered when designing buildings because people never Know who may be at risk."

So in high-altitude buildings, no matter how small the precautions are, it may affect the split-second decision-making of young people who want to commit suicide.

The "romanticized" suicide sanctuary of Internet celebrities

There are many buildings in the world like The Vessel where people actively choose to commit suicide.

In the ranking of internet celebrity suicide sites given by Wikipedia, the Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge in China ranks first in popularity.

One of the most famous cases of blocking was a line of words written by volunteers on the railings of the Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge, "Where is the capital of Madagascar?"

They hope to use this question to temporarily distract people who jump off the bridge, think again, and leave buffer time.

The Golden Gate Bridge is also one of the most popular suicide sites in the world.

The Golden Gate Bridge is hailed as a miracle of bridge engineering in the 20th century. With a total length of about 2.7 kilometers, it is one of the largest single-hole suspension bridges in the world.

When people walk on this majestic bridge, they will be shocked by the fairyland-like beauty, further awakening the suicidal tendencies in their hearts.

A few seconds after jumping from the highest bridge of 227 meters (745 feet), most people will be swept away by the extremely fast river and die immediately before they can regret it.

It is worth emphasizing that both the Nanjing Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge are landmark symbols of a past era, and their predictability is far less than it is now.

After New York already has many high-altitude landmarks such as the Empire State Building and the World Trade Center, The Vessel should learn lessons and pay attention to facility safety instead of just pursuing sensational effects.

I hope that both builders and architects can regard health and safety as the cornerstone of urban architecture. After all, the ultimate goal of architectural services is always people.